The present invention relates generally to means for detecting body movement, and, more particularly, relates to systems, and methods of operation thereof, within a position locator device for evaluating movement of a body relative to an environment. The invention can provide a care giver information concerning the location and the orientation of the body of a person in the care giver""s care. The present invention is especially useful in indicating that a person who is mentally or physically disabled has wandered away from bed and may fall.
Methods for determining specific movements of a body that use a variety of devices, apparatus and systems are, generally speaking, known. The term xe2x80x9cbodyxe2x80x9d is defined broadly hereafter and includes both organic and inorganic objects.
In point of fact, many methods are known for sensing body movement, or non-movement (i.e., sensed dynamic accelerations, including cessation of movement), as well as, for sensing body movement over time, which is commonly used to determine comparative levels of activity of a monitored body (See, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,110,741, 4,292,630, 5,045,839, and 5,523,742). These methodologies, however, merely report various levels of body activity, and, simply stated, fail to recognize possible causes for any increased or decreased level of body activity.
In contrast, other methodologies have developed over time for the detection of falls (See also, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,829,285, 5,477,211, 5,554,975, and 5,751,214). These methodologies are largely based upon the utilization of one or more mechanical switches (e.g., mercury switches) that determine when a body has attained a horizontal position. These methods however fail to discern xe2x80x9cnormal,xe2x80x9d or acceptable, changes in levels of body activity. Stated another way, the foregoing fall detection methodologies provide no position change analysis and, therefore, cannot determine whether a change in position, once attained, is acceptable or unacceptable.
Various training methods have been conceived for sensing relative tilt of a body (See, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,300,921 and 5,430,435), and some such methodologies have employed two-axis accelerometers. The output of these devices, however, have reported only static acceleration of the body (i.e., the position of a body relative to earth within broad limits). It should be appreciated that static acceleration, or gravity, is not the same as a lack of dynamic acceleration (i.e., vibration, body movement, and the like), but is instead a gauge of position. While accelerometers that measure both static and dynamic acceleration are known, their primary use has heretofore been substantially confined to applications directed to measuring one or the other, but not both.
Thus, it may be seen that the various conventional detectors fall into one of two varieties, those that gauge movement of the body and those that gauge a body""s position by various means, with neither type capable of evaluating body movement to determine whether the same is normal or abnormal; and if abnormal, whether such movement is so abnormal to be beyond tolerance, for instance, to be damaging, destructive, crippling, harmful, injurious, or otherwise alarming or, possibly, distressing to the body. None of the methodologies heretofore known have provided a suitable means to evaluate body movement over time and to determine whether such movement is tolerable. Further improvement could thus be utilized.
One very important area involving the evaluation of body movement involves monitoring the attempted movements of persons who are physically disabled or who suffer from cognitive decline. It is estimated that as many as five million (5,000,000) persons in the United States suffer from cognitive decline. Alzheimer""s disease and senile dementia are the major causes of cognitive decline. Alzheimer""s disease is estimated to afflict between three million (3,000,000) and four million (4,000,000) persons. Senile dementia afflicts the majority of the remainder of those persons who suffer from cognitive decline. Some persons may suffer a temporary cognitive decline due to illness and recover their cognitive faculties when they recover from the illness.
Alzheimer""s disease is caused by the formation of amyloid plaques of protein that disrupt normal neural activity. Many persons who get Alzheimer""s disease begin to experience the onset when they are in their sixties.
Senile dementia is caused by a number of different factors that are related to brain aging and geriatric diseases. Many persons who get senile dementia begin to experience the onset when they are in their seventies and eighties.
An estimated fifteen percent (15%) of people who suffer from cognitive decline are in institutions such as hospitals, nursing homes or similar institutions. The procedures that are used in such institutions are specifically designed to closely monitor persons who are suffering from cognitive decline.
However, most of the people who suffer from cognitive decline are not institutionalized but are cared for at home. It is estimated that as many as ten percent (10%) to twenty percent (20%) of these cases are in the advanced stages of cognitive decline.
Persons who are in the advanced stages of cognitive decline are very likely to be unable to prevent themselves from falling when they attempt to rise from a bed or a chair. The same is true for persons who are suffering from either temporary or permanent physical decline. For example, a person who has suffered a stroke or who has broken a leg may have a similar risk of falling when they attempt to rise from a bed or a chair.
In order to prevent such persons from falling, it would be advantageous to have a position locator device that could alert a care giver whenever a person who suffers from cognitive or physical decline leaves his or her bed (or chair) and wanders away. It would also be advantageous to have a position locator device that is capable of evaluating movement of the body of a monitored person relative to an environment. For example, when the position locator device detects a body movement that signifies the occurrence of a potentially dangerous event (e.g., a fall), the position locator device can immediately send an alarm to call for assistance.
To address the above-introduced deficiencies of the prior art, the present invention introduces systems, as well as methods of operating such systems, within a position locator device for evaluating movement of a body relative to an environment. For the purposes hereof, the term xe2x80x9cbodyxe2x80x9d is defined broadly, meaning any organic or inorganic object whose movement or position may suitably be evaluated relative its environment in accordance with the principles hereof; and where the term xe2x80x9cenvironmentxe2x80x9d is defined broadly as the conditions and the influences that determine the behavior of the physical system in which the body is located. The term xe2x80x9cposition locator devicexe2x80x9d is defined broadly to include, without limitation, devices that are capable of sending an electronic transmission as a locator signal, Global Positioning System (GPS) devices, and other similar types of devices that are capable of detecting the location of a person who is being monitored.
An advantageous embodiment of a system that evaluates movement of a body relative to an environment in accordance herewith includes both a sensor and a processor. In operation, the sensor is associated with the body and operates to repeatedly sense accelerative phenomena of the body. The processor, which is associated with the sensor, processes the sensed accelerative phenomena as a function of at least one accelerative event characteristic to determine whether the evaluated body movement is within environmental tolerance. The processor also preferably generates state indicia while processing the sensed accelerative phenomena, which represents the state of the body within the environment over time.
For the purposes hereof, the term xe2x80x9csensorxe2x80x9d is defined broadly, meaning a device that senses one or more absolute values, changes in value, or some combination of the same, of at least the sensed accelerative phenomena. According to a preferred embodiment, described in detail hereafter, the sensor may be a plural-axis sensor that senses accelerative phenomena and generates an output signal to the processor indicative of measurements of both dynamic and static acceleration of the body in plural axes.
According to this embodiment, the processor receives and processes the output signal. The processor is preferably programmed to distinguish between normal and abnormal accelerative events, and, when an abnormal event is identified, to indicate whether the abnormal event is tolerable, or within tolerance. In further embodiments, the processor may be programmed to distinguish other physical characteristics, including temperature, pressure, force, sound, light, relative position, and the like.
It should be noted that the relevant environment may be statically or dynamically represented. The sophistication of any such representation may be as complex or as uncomplicated as needed by a given application (e.g., disability, injury, infirmity, relative position, or other organic assistance monitoring; cargo or other transport monitoring; military, paramilitary, or other tactical maneuver monitoring; etc.). It should further be noted that any representation may initially be set to, or reset to, a default, including, for instance, a physically empty space, or vacuum.
Regardless, the principles of the preferred exemplary embodiment discussed heretofore require at least one accelerative event characteristic to be represented to enable the processor to determine whether the evaluated body movement is within environmental tolerance, which is again advantageously based upon both dynamic and static acceleration measurements.
According to a related embodiment, the processor is further operable, in response to processing the sensed accelerative phenomena, to generate state indicia, which includes tolerance indicia, generated in response to determining whether the evaluated body movement is within environmental tolerance. Preferably, such tolerance indicia is compared with at least one threshold, likely associated with the accelerative event characteristic. In response to such comparison, the processor controls a suitable indicating means to initiate an alarm event; to communicate such tolerance indicia to a monitoring controller; to generate statistics; or the like.
According to a related preferred embodiment, the system may be associated with other components or sensing systems. For instance, in an assistance monitoring application, the sensor may repeatedly sense dynamic and static acceleration of the body in the plural axes and generate output signals indicative of the measurements. The processor continuously processes the output signals to distinguish between selected accelerative and non-selected accelerative events (described in detail hereafter) based upon both the dynamic and the static acceleration of the body, and generates state indicia, including tolerance indicia, that is communicated to a remote monitoring controller. The tolerance indicia is communicated to the monitoring controller for record keeping/statistical purposes, as well as to provide xe2x80x9clivexe2x80x9d monitoring of the individual subscriber.
Communication between the processor and the controller may be by a wireless network, a wired network, or some suitable combination of the same, and may include the Internet. Preferably, the system generates an alert whenever the monitored subscriber is in xe2x80x9cjeopardy,xe2x80x9d as determined by the system, such as in response to a debilitating fall by the subscriber. In a further embodiment, the processor is operable to repeatedly generate xe2x80x9cheartbeatxe2x80x9d indicia that indicates that the system is in an operable state, whereby absence of the same informs the monitoring controller that some other part of the system is malfunctioning.
In an alternate embodiment of the present invention, the sensor and the processor are located within a position location device. The position location device may communicate information to a care giver by a wireless network, a wired network, or some suitable combination of the same, and may include the Internet. The information sent by the position location device may comprise (1) information concerning the body orientation of a person and (2) information concerning the location of a person.
The foregoing has outlined rather broadly the features and technical advantages of the present invention so that those skilled in the art may better understand the DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION that follows. Additional features and advantages of the invention will be described hereinafter that form the subject of the claims of the invention. Those skilled in the art should appreciate that they may readily use the conception and specific embodiments disclosed as a basis for modifying or designing other structures for carrying out the same purposes of the present invention. Those skilled in the art should also realize that such equivalent constructions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention in its broadest form.
Before undertaking the DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION, it may be advantageous to set forth definitions of certain words and phrases used throughout this patent document: the terms xe2x80x9cincludexe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9ccomprise,xe2x80x9d as well as derivatives thereof, mean inclusion without limitation; the term xe2x80x9cor,xe2x80x9d is inclusive, meaning and/or; the phrases xe2x80x9cassociated withxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cassociated therewith,xe2x80x9d as well as derivatives thereof, and the term xe2x80x9cassociablexe2x80x9d may mean to include, be included within, interconnect with, contain, be contained within, connect to or with, couple to or with, be communicable with, cooperate with, interleave, juxtapose, be proximate to, be bound to or with, have, have a property of, or the like; and the terms xe2x80x9ccontrollerxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cprocessorxe2x80x9d mean any device, system or part thereof that controls at least one operation, such a device may be implemented in hardware, firmware or software, or some suitable combination of at least two of the same. It should be noted that the functionality associated with any particular controller/processor may be centralized or distributed, whether locally or remotely. Definitions for certain words and phrases are provided throughout this patent document, those of ordinary skill in the art should understand that in many, if not most instances, such definitions apply to prior, as well as future uses of such defined words and phrases.